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5 July 2001
July 5, 2001: Ashcroft Is Warned of Imminent, Multiple Attacks from Al-Qaeda The CIA briefs Attorney General Ashcroft on the al-Qaeda threat. Several senior CIA Counterterrorist Center officials warn him that a significant attack is imminent, preparations for multiple attacks are in the late stages or already complete, and that little additional warning can be expected. He is told the attack is more likely to occur overseas than in the US. He was also briefed by the CIA on the al-Qaeda threat on May 15, 2001. COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 258-259, 534; TENET, 2007, PP. 150 CIA Director Tenet will later claim in a book that at the end of the briefing, Ashcroft turned to some FBI personnel and asked them, “Why are they telling me this? Why am I not hearing this from you?” 2007, PP. 150 One week later, the FBI will brief him about the al-Qaeada threat in the US and he will reportedly reply, “I do not want to hear about this anymore” (see July 12, 2001). By the end of July, he will stop flying commercial aircraft in the US (see July 26, 2001). Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, Al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency, John Ashcroft Category Tags: Warning Signs, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics July 5, 2001: Mohamed Atta Pulled over for Speeding; Police Do Not Notice Warrant for His Arrest Hijacker Mohamed Atta is pulled over for speeding in Delray Beach, Florida, but is only given a warning. On June 4, a Florida warrant was issued for Atta’s arrest, as he skipped court following a previous traffic offense (see June 4, 2001), but the warrant apparently has not yet been entered in a police database, so the police officer does not know this. PETERSBURG TIMES, 12/14/2001; GOVEXEC, 3/16/2004 Police do not check his immigration status, which would require a call to a Law Enforcement Support Center hotline. Had such a call been made, it would have revealed Atta had overstayed his visa. 3/16/2004 Sen. Bob Graham (D) will later comment about this and the failure to red flag Ziad Jarrah when he also gets a ticket (see September 9, 2001), “Had local law enforcement been able to run the names of Jarrah and Atta against a watch list, it is likely that they would have been arrested and detained, and at least one team of hijackers would no longer have had a pilot.” AND NUSSBAUM, 2004, PP. 37 An FBI timeline compiled after 9/11 does not mention if this incident is entered into the NCIC, a nationwide police database. BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, 10/2001, PP. 177 Entity Tags: Bob Graham, Mohamed Atta Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Hijacker Contact w Government in US July 5, 2001: Bush Asks for Reports on Domestic Terror Threats In 2002, Newsweek will report: “The White House acknowledged for the first time, President Bush was privately beginning to worry about the stream of terror warnings he was hearing that summer, most of them aimed at US targets abroad. On July 5, five days before the Phoenix memo (see July 10, 2001), Bush directed Condoleezza Rice to figure out what was going on domestically.” 5/27/2002 In 2004, President Bush will explain why he requested this: “The reason I did is because there had been a lot of threat intelligence from overseas. And part of it had to do with the Genoa Italy G8 conference that I was going to attend.” PRESIDENT, 4/19/2004 Though he does not mention it, the chief security concern at the late July 2001 conference he mentions is intelligence that al-Qaeda plans to fly an airplane into the conference. This threat is so widely reported before the conference (with some reports before July 5 (see June 13, 2001 and Mid-July 2001) that the attack is called off (see July 20-22, 2001). For instance, in late June, Time magazine mentioned a German intelligence report of an Osama bin Laden plot “to fly remote-controlled model aircraft packed with Semtex into the conference hall and blow the leaders of the industrialized world to smithereens” (see June 20, 2001). Bush will later claim that this request is specifically for the later-famous August 6, 2001 briefing entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” (see August 6, 2001), although the CIA analysts who draft it will deny this (see July 13, 2004). PRESIDENT, 4/19/2004 Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Al-Qaeda Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Key Warnings, Warning Signs, Bush's Aug. 6, 2001 PDB, Presidential Level Warnings July 5, 2001: Clarke Warns Domestic Agencies of ‘Something Spectacular’ Planned by Al-Qaeda At the request of National Security Adviser Rice and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke leads a meeting of the Counterterrorism Security Group, attended by officials from a dozen federal agencies, including the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the FAA, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, Customs, the CIA, and the FBI. The CIA and FBI give briefings on the growing al-Qaeda threat. POST, 5/17/2002; TIME, 8/4/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 258 Then Clarke later recalls saying, “You’ve just heard that CIA thinks al-Qaeda is planning a major attack on us. So do I. You heard CIA say it would probably be in Israel or Saudi Arabia. Maybe. But maybe it will be here. Just because there is no evidence that says that it will be here, does not mean it will be overseas. They may try to hit us at home. You have to assume that is what they are going to do.” 2004, PP. 236 Two attendees later recall Clarke stating that “something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon.” One who attended the meeting later calls the evidence that “something spectacular” is being planned by al-Qaeda “very gripping.” POST, 5/17/2002; TIME, 8/4/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 256 Clarke directs every counterterrorist office to cancel vacations, defer non-vital travel, put off scheduled exercises, and place domestic rapid-response teams on much shorter alert. However, there is very poor follow up to the meeting and the attendees don’t share the warnings with their home agencies (see Shortly After July 5, 2001). By early August, all of these emergency measures are no longer in effect. 3/2002; WASHINGTON POST, 5/17/2002 Entity Tags: US Customs Service, Richard A. Clarke, Secret Service, US Coast Guard, Al-Qaeda, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Aviation Administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Counterterrorism and Security Group, Condoleezza Rice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Andrew Card Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics July 5, 2001: CIA Officer Says Malaysia Summit Attendees May Be Linked to Current Threat Reporting Tom Wilshire, a CIA officer assigned to the FBI, sends an e-mail to managers at Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, saying there is a potential connection between recent warnings of an attack against US interests and al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit in January 2000 (see January 5-8, 2000). He notes “how bad things look in Malaysia” and points out that hijacker Khalid Almihdhar may be connected to the radicals who attacked the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000). He recommends that the Cole bombing and the Malaysia summit be re-examined for potential connections to the current warnings of an attack. The e-mail ends, “all the indicators are of a massively bad infrastructure being readily completed with just one purpose in mind.” DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 298 This is one of a series of e-mails sent around this time by Wilshire to Alec Station about al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit (see July 13, 2001 and July 23, 2001). Presumably, one of the recipients at CIA headquarters is Richard Blee, the manager responsible for Alec Station, as he apparently receives at least one of the e-mails (see July 13, 2001). Entity Tags: Tom Wilshire, Rich B., Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Alec Station, Khalid Almihdhar Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, 2000 USS Cole Bombing